Bloom & Dark

by Regina Watts

  The notion was somehow very tempting to me, if only because I found the idea of continued security for my mistress a relief. What life would there be for her, though, without her goddess? Perhaps this was what Weltyr wanted—an opportunity for the priestess to be separated from her divinity so that, in Roserpine’s absence, the true spirit of the divine might enter into her heart and soul.

  “How can I be sure that you won’t go back on your word?”

  As you so cleverly mentioned, Paladin, the god-mind of my race hears and sees all that I do; and all my siblings hear and see what the god-mind hears. My betrayal would be noted among my fellows. I would be ill-regarded.

  “So I’m to put my trust in the ethics of an entire race of demons? Forgive me for remaining unconvinced.”

  Just consider it, Paladin. If you acquire the ring, meet me here.

  “Easier said than done!”

  Yes, said the spirit thief at last, releasing its healed charge and making its way to the rear door of the room, it is almost as though it would be far easier for you to kill her and wait for us to release you from the dungeon. Think my offer over, Burningsoul. I will not make it again.

  AT HER PLEASURE

  THOUGH IT WAS not long before Indra and Odile came back to collect me, the wait seemed eternal. All I wished was to return to the Palace of Roserpine and see my mistress, over whom I now worried in light of the spirit-thief’s aims. What had occurred in my absence? What would I find when I returned?

  “You’re so quiet now, Burningsoul!” Odile laughed and slapped me in the arm. “Whatever happened in there couldn’t be so bad, could it?”

  I did laugh with her, albeit darkly. “It’s true, Kyrie was a very attractive woman…perhaps I’m only feeling a twang of guilt. We humans are not used to such—liberation.”

  It was useless, I knew, to bring up the spirit-thief to Indra and Odile—useless, or maybe even dangerous. The last thing I wanted was for the lives of the women who saved mine to be put at stake. Therefore, I kept the knowledge of Kyrie and her so-called friend to myself. Easy enough to blame my odd mood on odder feelings about my mistress—and Odile believed me, laughing and shaking her head with even more enthusiasm.

  “Oh, Burningsoul…you’re a gentleman, all right. Rest assured, if your mistress didn’t like the thought of you in the arms of another woman, she wouldn’t have sent you along with us and would have instead left us high and dry, or even paid us the difference out of her own coffers. We like to share here in El’ryh—men, at least.”

  “Apparently.”

  Although I tried to ignore the poisonous thoughts of the spirit-thief, I could not help but find new criticism for the society among which I was staying. Now I looked around me with a colder, more judgmental eye. All around me, slaves—men and women both—lugged goods as I had only a few days before, or sold wares in exchange for money that they would not be permitted to keep for themselves, or (more than once on that trip back to the palace) received a public thrashing for some slight, real or imagined.

  Regardless of whether or not the spirit-thieves were at all to be trusted, I could not help but admit its proposed position on the institution of slavery was correct. However long it had been maintained, the durrow’s method of securing cheap labor and genetic material was unacceptable…and I was a part of it now. Yes, I had gone along peacefully, telling myself I had done so as part of the bargain made in exchange for my life—but did I really have a choice? I had not been in any position to refuse such an agreement; and in my condition, if I had found some justification by which to break with the deal, they just as easily could have killed me before I fully recovered. So, whatever I told myself, my lot was the same as the lots of all these men and women brought to the Nightlands to serve the long-lived durrow. I was only better off by virtue of my mistress’s affection for me; only by grace of her kindness.

  Somehow, I thought it might be best if I left a proverbial door open for myself.

  “Will I see either one of you again?” I glanced between my saviors, who exchanged a look of their own at my question.

  Indra in particular frowned. “Perhaps, by chance, if Roserpine is generous.”

  “We live south of the meat market,” Odile said with a general wave, “so if your mistress ever sends you out that way, ask around and find your way to our home. Most people around there know us.”

  “The meat market? I don’t know that my mistress will ever have cause to send me on an errand for the kitchens.”

  The women found that the funniest thing I had yet to say. “It’s slang,” explained Odile. “The auction quarter—where slaves are most often bought and sold.”

  “Ah,” I said, somewhat coldly again.

  “Come on, Burningsoul, lighten up! Your mistress won’t be mad at you, no matter what you did in there. For all you know she’s spent this whole time aching with desire for you…she’ll greet you home again with open arms and eager lips, reward you for all the time spent out paying our dues for us like the honest man you are.”

  Honest—yes, honest. My circumstances were changed, but if there was still one thing that could be said of me, I certainly was honest. Honest, and loyal. It was terribly strange that after just a few days by her side I could feel such a deep connection to Valeria, but there was no helping it. Beyond her generosity to me in those first few blooms of our acquaintance, she was a well of sincere feelings like one could rarely find on the surface, let alone in the Nightlands.

  Not to mention the lightning that always seemed to strike between us.

  After I parted ways with Indra and Odile at the palace gates, a guard accompanied me up to Valeria’s quarters. I was not expecting, despite my mistress’s warnings, the commotion I found inside, nor the slew of beautiful durrow females arranged along with their favored female slaves throughout the sitting room. All manner of giddy noises rose to the ceiling and I, stunned by the beauty of the paradisical sight, stopped short in the doorway and had to be pushed within by the guard.

  “Your man is back, Materna,” called the guard, interrupting a whispered conversation between Valeria and her vizier on the other side of the room. My mistress stood with her arms crossed and a few locks of radiant white hair falling around her flushed cheeks; seeing me, Trystera’s already tight expression tightened all the further. She turned on her heel and strode around the party, once more ignoring me although we passed each other in the process.

  Meanwhile, in the conversation pit at the center of Valeria’s living room, the women produced excited whispers to see me. I recognized most from the dining hall the previous day, though a few were unknown to me. Certainly I had not seen any of their slaves before, lovely pale elves and one or two humans already half-undressed (or simply dressed in customarily skimpy garments that shocked me with their novelty) who lifted indolent heads and exchanged hungry glances.

  Valeria turned to greet me and glowed with approval as I knelt. “There you are, slave. Were Indra and Odile satisfied with your performance?”

  “Not as satisfied as the wadjita, I would think, but pleased with my obedience, yes, Madame.”

  “I’m not surprised…stand, Paladin, be at ease. Here”—the sensual priestess waved her ringed hand to indicate for the elf-girl near a glittering pitcher of some bright pink fluid—“let’s get you comfortable. Drink up and stay by my side. It will surely be boring for you to be exposed to all this chatter, but I promise, things will be interesting soon.”

  That was to say the least—although nothing could be further from boring than standing by Valeria’s side. To simply do this much filled me with such a fire that I feared I might combust, and these thoughts had me drinking the cloying potion I’d been handed with true thirst. While my mistress reclined in a chaise longue and laughed with nearby women about this or that anecdote from politics, the Palace, or the world outside El’ryh, I admired her and all those who had been invited to the evening of debauchery ahead.

  Indeed, it would seem that the debauchery
had already begun. While some bantered casually, a pair of durrow exchanged the occasional lingering kiss, their eyes heavily upon one another whenever they were forced to separate to add to the conversation. The short-haired one I recognized from the dining hall had her hand inside the gauzy silver gown of the friend nearest her, the lovely creature with the intricate and glamorous coiffure that had since been rearranged to let a few delicate curls tumble before her sweeping ear. Each studied me frequently, as did all the others in the room—and somehow, it only occurred to me belatedly that no one had brought along a male slave.

  Finally, the banter returned to me. Some teasing comment was made: I missed its context along with the comment itself, but tuned back in from my distant thoughts at the sound of explosive laughter coming from all the durrow. Valeria smiled patiently on, and then the short-haired durrow boldly asked to know, “So, Valeria? Will you put him out to stud for slaves as well as noblewomen?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but this one’s seed seems so valuable…not to mention this tool of his.” She set her goblet down upon a nearby table and turned to me then, blithely lifting my tunic and further commenting, “I must say, Burningsoul here has been exceptionally patient when it comes to learning about our ways.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” quipped the well-fed woman who, much like my mistress, openly admired my rear. “Given the chance for a mistress like you, Valeria, I think we’d all be slaves…”

  “Well, Burningsoul?” Ignoring her friend as Trystera ignored me, my lady propped her elbow against the back of her seat and turned toward me that fiery pair of pearls. Her furred robe slid open at her breast and I let her watch my gaze fall this time. She smiled slightly when I regained eye contact, asking me at the same time, “You must have thought of a few questions to ask about this world.”

  “Only the names of these lovely ladies before me,” I said, “and how they’d best be pleased.”

  “How quick you are, Paladin.” Though the women around us giggled, my mistress appeared unamused. I nonetheless smiled at her, especially as she pressed, “A quick study, yes—but, surely there are some things you wonder about. Here we are in the company of all these durrow. You don’t have a question?”

  “Well, I suppose. Is it normal for a slave to be put to this use?”

  “Normal, yes…but still uncommon. It just depends on the situation. You don’t apply for every job in every field when looking for an occupation, do you? Don’t fall in love with everyone you meet.” She paused, thinking something to herself, looking hard at me. I looked back at her and knew we felt the same things. She went on, “It’s a bit like that with pleasure-slaves. Sometimes, you acquire one that simply...suits your needs.”

  “And do slaves that suit your needs end up beaten in the streets for their troubles?”

  A few durrow tutted and exchanged disapproving glances. Valeria, nonplussed, asked drolly, “I thought humans kept animals.”

  “We do. All species do, even yours.”

  “Yes. We keep animals, too.” The high priestess into whose clutches I had fallen leaned forward to afford me a scintillating look down her gown…what little of it there was to look down, at any rate. “And are all owners of animals universally good? Do all animals owned by human beings, dwarfs, surface elves, gnomes—do they all, each and every one of them, go to bed with full stomachs, well entertained, well at-ease?”

  I said, thinking honestly on the matter for a few seconds, “No, of course not. Would that it were so.”

  “Would that it were so. Precisely.” Valeria plucked up her goblet of ruby wine and looked me over, saying somewhat thinly, “Would that all men and women were treated well within the confines of their households. Would that slaves were, in practice, something closer to indentured servants. Would that many things were different, Paladin…but they aren’t. This is the culture.”

  “The culture can change,” I said to the woman who clearly did not feel like she was, in her full heart, part of that same social construct that had begun to weigh so heavily upon my conscience. “Anyone, anything can change.”

  “Much like a slave when well-beaten,” chimed in the merry, curvaceous woman, who laughed and glanced toward the friends sharing in her mirth. “Come on, Pally, a bit of whipping is good for your soul. Always sets my Ernani straight.”

  “Some slaves actually like being beaten,” agreed the short-haired durrow still fondling the bosom of her elegant friend. “Coral, come.”

  With a rotation of her free wrist, she summoned forward a buxom gold-haired elf who looked pleased to be called upon. “You like a good bit of flagellation now and again, don’t you, Coral?”

  The slave blushed wildly at the question. “If ’t would please Madame to hear my wicked thoughts, then I must confess a certain glee upon the well-placed strike of a whip or nasty little scourge.”

  “Don’t we all,” agreed Valeria, glancing at me sidelong before saying to me, “Go fetch the scourge from the wall above my bed.”

  Very dramatic. I understood her reasoning for orchestrating such a thing—knew why she felt like demonstrating the power she had over me, to make me helpless while I watched he savage beating of an innocent woman I did not know—but I had no eagerness to witness the imminent events even if consensual. As a consequence I stared her down for a long few seconds before I turned to do as she commanded. Perhaps the spirit-thief had been right about this poisonous institution and the violence required to overthrow it. Perhaps there was no peaceful route that could be found when it came to dismantling slavery.

  When I returned with the scourge, the elf, flushed and lovely, had stripped bare to her pale flesh. A pulse of pleasure swept me and I averted my eyes, not willing to see her and titillate myself when I was about to witness such a heinous act. Weltyr’s will at work again; I struggled to keep my face neutral and out of a deep frown of displeasure as I tried to hand my mistress the flagellum handle-first.

  “What are you waiting for?” She gazed at me with those lustful pearls from behind the goblet pressed against her lips. “Whip her.”

  I struggled to make out what she had just said amid the sudden drop of blood from my head, and could only repeat dumbly, “You want me to do it?”

  “Go on.”

  Valeria nodded toward the splendid elf-slave, who had gathered her thick blonde tresses over her shoulder and now petted them in some nervous habit. The gentle slope of her back was a snowy hill that terminated in comely twin domes. A pair of precious dimples demarcated the shift, and while my free hand grabbed and held the tips of the handheld whip, Valeria settled back in her seat to watch properly. “You’ll see that she likes it…we’re not all such disgraceful, cruel mistresses as you would think.”

  More frightened of myself than the women around me, I glanced at the implement in my hand. What was this bright wave of excitement on considering the elf before me, who waited with her back exposed and her breath quickening in anticipation of the so-called punishment?

  “Go on, slave,” repeated Valeria, impatient in the face of my hesitance. “We don’t have all dark to wait.”

  “Fain would I take the lashes of the cruelest scourge you could provide,” assured the elf, looking over the pale curve of her bare shoulder to regard me with plump lip bitten and bright eyes all the brighter amid the glow of her face.

  Exhaling, I looked once more at the weapon, then steeled myself for the act.

  “Turn around,” I told her, amazed at the relief this one second of power provoked in me. I was not a man accustomed to giving orders, but after spending any time in the clutches of the durrow, the act of giving a command seemed to restore some inner sense of balance—especially when the command was obeyed, and the elf called Coral turned her face away. She sat upon a bench and, feeling the eyes of the durrow upon me, I strode over and took her by the arm. The elf gasped as I drew her to her feet, then again as I gazed into her eyes. No hesitance there at all, remarkably.

  Finally, satisfied that I was com
mitting no crime against another sapient being, I took several steps back and gathered the lashes of the scourge in my free hand. The leather thongs were many in number, each one terribly small—and anyone who has ever been hit by such a thing can attest that small lashes somehow manage to sting all the worse. Perhaps I was so sensitive to the idea of slaves being whipped because I had known the lash more than once as a boy prone to ill behavior. But seeing how the elf responded from that very first blow changed something in me: at the very least, my perspective on corporal punishment.

  I drew back my arm, struck forward with the whip. The durrow around us gasped as though with desire, but none near with so much pleasure as Coral. Her breath hitched and, by Weltyr, she moaned upon the sharp slash of the cruel thongs into her back’s radiant flesh.

  “There, see?” Valeria’s voice was sultry with approval while, somewhat amazed, I experimented with striking again, lower, and received only a lower note of desire from the elfin slave. “It’s not so bad, is it.”

  The lash snapped down a third time and, with this new moan, pink marks from the first blow faded into the elf’s skin. She swayed upon her feet, wiggling back and forth as though eager to be taken. Had the other slaves had been plied with that same expedient of pleasure that had been handed me, and that the durrow sipped while watching the unfurling performance? Whatever the case, Coral seemed unfeignedly pleased as I applied the lash to every inch of her back, her buttocks, her pretty pale thighs—all soon glowing pink with the attention of my implement.

  “He is very talented with that thing,” said the short-haired durrow approvingly.

  “I had a feeling he would be.” Valeria’s voice was breathless with pleasure to see all this unfold before her. I glanced over my shoulder to see her hand rested upon her bosom, slowly and unconsciously massaging while she watched. I redoubled my efforts, throbbing with desire at the thought of my mistress taking such hedonistic glee in all this. Coral, meanwhile, moaned and begged for more, crying out, “Oh, Paladin! Yes oh…it’s been too long since I was beaten by a man, please—harder, harder, don’t be shy!”